This invention relates to a slicer having a very small space between two adjoining knife blades for slicing foodstuff, such as ham, bacon, cheese, meat, bread and the like into thin slices.
In conventional slicers having a very small space between adjoining knife blades which are secured in side by side relationship by a pair of blade holders which move reciprocally for slicing the aforementioned foodstuff, there are two difficulties in slicing such foodstuff into very thin slices. One difficulty is that the hook members for holding the knife blades on the blade holders must have individual resilient means such as a coil spring for providing even tension on an individual knife blade. This results in the minimum spacing between said adjoining knife blades being limited to a size larger than half of the diameter of said coil springs, so that an extremely small space, for example, 2.5 mm, is not possible. Another difficulty is that the hook members on the blade holder must pass between the hook members on the other blade holder during reciprocal moving, so the minimum space between said adjoining knife blades is limited to a space larger than the thickness of said hook members. Concerning the support members, which are fixedly mounted on the lower portion of the blade holder respectively and have a plurality of supporting parts for supporting the lower portions of the knife blades and have a plurality of grooves between the supporting parts for allowing the supporting parts of the other blade to pass, said minimum space being limited to a space larger than the width of the supporting parts. For these reasons, in slicing foodstuff into very thin slices with a conventional slicer, the knife blades can't be pulled with enough tension to slice the foodstuff into even thickness slices due to weak resilient means and thin hook means and weak supporting parts.
My U.S. Pat. No. 3,628,581 granted on Dec. 21, 1971 discloses a machine useful for slicing the aforementioned foodstuff, which is adapted to support and secure the knife blades positively, making it possible to readily slice the foodstuff into thin slices of desired uniform thickness at a high speed.
The slicer disclosed therein has two groups of knife blades secured in side-by-side relationship by a pair of blade holders, each group comprising a plurality of blades which move reciprocally to cut foodstuff into slices. Each pair of blade holders secures one group of knife blades and is provided with a groove between each blade of the supported group through which a blade of the other group of knife blades passes to define an opening between adjacent blades.
In the slicers described in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,628,501, however, a great deal of complexity is involved in construction and assembly when the hook member is mounted on the blade holder since the vertical and diagonal hook members are alternately interconnected with each other. Further, when the blades are each pulled by the same size resilient means, the tension on the blades as set on the diagonal hooks is different from that on the blades on the vertical hooks, because the direction of the clamping force of the diagonal hooks is different from that of the vertical hooks. Such a blade assembly requires a complex adjustment to achieve even blade tension. Otherwise it is difficult to slice the foodstuff into even thickness slices due to the uneven blade tension.
Further, when the length of each blade from holding pin to holding pin is slightly different, the edge of each knife blade is not arranged in a straight line. This causes difficulty in slicing in even thicknesses.